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I've always felt that music is an art form that deserves to live the life of the artist.

I think the music I make is true to my life. A lot of people can relate to it. It is real. I'm just saying it how it is - I don't sugar-coat it. If you are an ambitious person, you want to strive for more. I want to do it all.

I've always made music that was representative of real life.

I wasn't making music consciously when I was younger. I was a musician, but that has its own stigmas. Anywhere on the planet, it's one of the more undervalued positions.

Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.

I believe music should reflect yourself in some way and not just yourself at the given time. I feel that when you die or when you're going, someone's supposed to listen to that music and know everything about you. And I just try to get that across.

Music is my life, it is a reflection of what I go through.

I feel that the music that I do is somewhat of a lost art and it's not as popular as dance or pop music and people are not as interested in it. But it's something that I believe in and I feel that it's needed, so that's why I do it and I will keep doing it until everybody hears it and gets it.

People's lives change dramatically over such a long time period, and I think that if you're still vital, and you're still interested in writing and things like that, of course your music evolves and reflects where you are in your life.

One of the biggest obstacles I've overcome in my life was thinking I didn't deserve to be successful. Artistically I'm not as much of a heavyweight as someone like Paul Simon or Joni Mitchell, because I'm not a creator of original music, and I worried about that for years.